Nicci French: Blue Monday

She drew a long, unsteady breath.

He made a note in his book. He rechecked Joanna’s age. Five and three months. Where she was last seen. Outside the sweetshop. Deborah couldn’t remember the name. She could take them there.

The officer closed his notebook. ‘She’s probably at a friend’s house,’ he said. ‘But have you got a photograph? A recent one.’

‘She’s little for her age,’ said Deborah. She could hardly get the words out. The officer had to lean forward to hear her. ‘A skinny little thing. She’s a good girl. Shy as anything when you first meet her. She wouldn’t go off with a stranger.’

‘A photo,’ he said.

She went to look. The officer glanced again at the girl in the garden with her blank white face. He’d have to talk to her, or one of his colleagues perhaps. A woman would be better. But maybe Joanna would turn up before it was necessary, tumble in. She had probably wandered off with a friend and was playing with whatever five-year-old girls play with – dolls and crayons and tea-sets and tiaras. He stared at the photograph Deborah Vine passed him, of a girl with dark hair like her sister’s and a thin face. One chipped tooth, a severe fringe, a smile that looked as if she had turned up her mouth when the photographer told her to say ‘cheese’.

‘Have you got hold of your husband?’

Her face twisted.

‘Richard – my… I mean, their father – doesn’t live with us.’ Then as if she couldn’t stop herself, she added: ‘He left us for someone younger.’

‘You should let him know.’

‘Does that mean you think this is really serious?’ She wanted him to say no, it didn’t really matter, but she knew it was serious. She was damp with fear. He could almost feel it rising off her.

‘We’ll keep in touch. A female officer is on her way here.’

‘What shall I do? There must be something I can do. I can’t just sit here waiting. Tell me what to do. Anything.’

‘You could phone people,’ he said. ‘Anywhere she might have gone.’

She clutched at his sleeve. ‘Tell me she’ll be all right,’ she insisted. ‘Tell me you’ll get her back.’

The officer looked awkward. He couldn’t say that and he couldn’t think of what else to say.

Every time the phone rang it was a little bit worse. People knocking at the door. They’d heard. What a terrible thing, but of course it would be all right. Everything would be all right. The nightmare would end. Was there anything they could do, anything at all? Only ask. Say the word. Now the sun was low in the sky and shadows lay over streets and houses and parks. It was getting cold. All over London, people were sitting in front of TV sets or standing at stoves, stirring the pot, or gathering in smoke-fugged groups in pubs, talking about Saturday’s results and holiday plans, moaning about little aches and pains.

Rosie crouched in the chair, her eyes wide. One of her plaits had come undone. The female police officer squatted beside her, large and plump and kind, patted her hand. But she couldn’t remember, didn’t know, mustn’t speak: words were dangerous. Nobody had told her. She wanted her father to come home and make everything all right, but they didn’t know where he was. They couldn’t find him. Her mother said he was probably on the road. She pictured him on a road that stretched away from him and dwindled into the distance under a dark sky.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. When she opened them, Joanna would be there. She held her breath until her chest ached and her blood hammered in her ears. She could make things happen. But when she opened her eyes to the police officer’s nice concerned face, her mother was still crying and nothing had changed.

At nine thirty the following morning, there was a meeting in what had been designated the operations room at Camford Hill police station. It was the moment when what had been a frantic search was turned into a co-ordinated operation. It was given a case number. Detective Chief Inspector Frank Tanner assumed command and made a speech. People were introduced to each other. Desks were assigned and argued over. An engineer installed phone lines. Cork boards were nailed to walls. There was a special sort of urgency in the room. But there was something else that nobody said out loud but everybody felt: a sickness somewhere in the stomach. This wasn’t a teenager or a husband who had disappeared after an argument. If it had been, they wouldn’t have been here. This was about a five-year-old girl. Seventeen and a half hours had passed since she had last been seen. It was too long. There had been an entire night. It had been a cool night; this was June and not November, and that was something. Still. A whole night.

DCI Tanner was just giving details of the press conference that was taking place later that morning when he was interrupted. A uniformed officer had come into the room. He pushed his way through and said something to Tanner that nobody else could hear.

‘Is he downstairs?’ said Tanner. The officer said that he was. ‘I’ll see him now.’

Tanner nodded at another detective and the two of them left the room together.

‘Is it the father?’ said the detective, who was called Langan.

‘He’s only just arrived.’

‘Are they on bad terms?’ Detective Langan said. ‘Him and his ex.’

‘I reckon,’ said Tanner.

‘It’s usually someone they know,’ said Langan.

‘That’s good to hear.’

‘I was just saying.’

They arrived outside the door of the interview room.

‘How are you going to play it?’ said Langan.

‘He’s a worried father,’ said Tanner, and pushed the door open.

Richard Vine was on his feet. He was dressed in a grey suit with no tie. ‘Is there any news?’ he said.

‘We’re doing everything we can,’ said Tanner.

‘No news at all?’

‘It’s early days,’ said Tanner, knowing as he said it that it wasn’t true. That it was the reverse of the truth. He gestured to Richard Vine to sit down.

Langan moved to one side so that he could observe the father as he talked. Vine was tall, with the stoop of a man who feels uncomfortable with his height, and had dark hair that was already turning grey at the temples, though he couldn’t have been more than his mid-thirties. He had dark, beetling brows and was unshaven; there was a bruised look to his pale, slightly puffy face. His brown eyes were red-rimmed and looked sore. He seemed dazed.

‘I was on the road,’ said Vine, without being asked. ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t hear until early this morning.’

‘Can you tell me where you were, Mr Vine?’

‘I was on the road,’ he repeated. ‘My work…’ He stopped and pushed a flap of hair back from his face. ‘I’m a salesman. I spend a lot of time on the road. What’s that got to do with my daughter?’

‘We just need to establish your whereabouts.’

‘I was in St Albans. There’s a new sports centre. Do you want to know the times? Do you need proof?’ His voice sharpened. ‘I wasn’t anywhere near here if that’s what you’re thinking. What’s Debbie been saying about me?’

‘I’d like to know times.’ Tanner kept his voice neutral. ‘And anyone who can corroborate what you’re telling us.’

‘What do you think? That I’ve abducted her and hidden her away somewhere, because Debbie won’t let me have the kids overnight, that she turns them against me? That I’ve…’ He wasn’t able to say the words.

‘These are just routine questions.’

‘Not to me! My little girl’s gone missing, my baby.’ He sagged. ‘Of course I’ll bloody tell you times. You can check them. But you’re wasting your time on me and all the while you’re not looking for her.’